256 The Laborer's Timekeeper. 



as the army streams homewards, they are the last to 

 rise and join the returning host. 



So that there are often rooks in and about the 

 Warren later in the evening after those whose habita- 

 tions are farther away have gone by, for, having so 

 short a distance to fly, they put off the movement till 

 the last moment. Before watches became so common 

 a possession, the laboring people used, they say, to 

 note the passage overhead of the rooks in the morn- 

 ing in winter as one of their signs of time, so regular 

 was their appearance ; and if the fog hid them, the 

 noise from a thousand black wings and throats could 

 not be missed. 



If from the rising ground beyond the Warren or 

 from the downs beyond that, the glance is allowed to 

 travel slowly over the vale northwards, inste'ad of the 

 innumerable meadows which are really there it will 

 appear to consist of one vast forest. Of the hamlet 

 not far distant there is nothing visible but the white 

 wall of a cottage, perhaps, shining in the sun, or the 

 pale blue smoke curling upwards. This wooded 

 appearance is caused by timber trees standing in 

 the hedgerows, in the copses at the corners of the 

 meadows, and by groups and detached trees in the 

 middle of the fields. 



Many hedges are full of elms, some have rows of 

 oaks ; some meadows have trees growing so thickly 

 in all four hedges as to seem surrounded by a timber 

 wall ; one or two have a number of ancient spreading 

 oaks dotted about in the field itself, or standing in 

 rows. But there are not nearly so many trees as 

 there used to be. Numerous hedges have been 

 grubbed to make the fields larger. 



